So it’s time for me to return to Europe tomorrow, since I unfortunately can’t keep skipping classes at university and my husband also has to return to work (he works at a ship for 35 days at the time), so I had one last shopping spree here in Japan, which was accessories and bags. The earrings and necklace is bought at a shop called “Stone market” which specializes in birth stones and all those kind of things, but they also sell cute, glittery accessory – perfect for the girly girls , like me. I wasn’t before I took the picture that I realized that I ended up buying a lot of flowers and butterflies – a “heat of the [shopping] moment”- problem, I guess. The above accessories ended up costing around 4300 yen (around 45 USD – so not the cheapest).

The last part of the shopping trip took place at the chain store, Shimamura, where I bought two bags, a shirt and lots of leg warmers, over knee socks and leggings. Everything for a very reasonable price. The two bags costs around 1000 yen each, so the two bags ended up costing around 20 USD – not a bad deal. The leg warmers and such costed around 3-4 USD pr. pair.

Yesterday I went to the Japanese Daiso store here in Miyazaki. Daiso store is a 100 yen shop – similar to a 1 Dollar store. Pretty much everything in the whole store costs 10o yen (105 yen tax included), which is around 1 dollar. You can often find all sorts of fun things in a 100 yen shop and no matter how many times I’ve been to the Japanese 100 yen shops, I keep getting surprised about what you can actually get for 100 yen – everything from tableware, snacks, drinks, clothing items, stationary, garden things, souvenirs, storage solutions and accessories.

And yesterday it was especially the accessory area that caught my attention, since they had these interesting Japanese themed (Japanese-patterned) earrings and hair accessory. They have basically used pattern often seen on Japanese kimonos and made several shapes.

The earrings are either made of glass-like plastic or fabric. The shapes of the plastic earrings spanned from flowers, leafs, tear drops, squares and etc. The fabric earrings were in the shapes of flowers, ribbons or butterflies. There were a lot more shapes and patterns in the shop than pictured above.

Like the earrings the hair accessories also had several shapes to offer, though from the same brand as the earrings you could chose from flowers, butterflies and ribbons – all made of fabric. On another shelfs bigger accessories were available – like big flowers and the traditional square shaped hairband as pictured above.

All these 12 accessory items totalled in 1260 yen (tax included) which is around 13USD – which is quite affordable shopping for cute and unique, Japanese styled accessories.

Yesterday I went shopping in the Aeon Shopping mall in Miyazaki, Japan with my husband (somebody had to pay for the fun). And Like always I find myself spending too much time looking at make-up and jewelry. I bought a lot of earrings, stockings, leg-warmers, make-up and other stuff. I just though it would be interesting to show these “Alice in Wonderland” themed earrings I bought. Japan really knows how to create cute designs that makes you want to spend your husband’s money. All the earrings I bought (including the above) are made in Japan, which makes them a bit more expensive that the regular girlish jewelry you can find in Japan. The earrings cost between 900 yen to 1,400 yen (10 – 16 USD), where you can often buy cute jewelry for the price of 315 yen to 600 yen. (3.5 – 9 USD).

Of course if you want real silver or gold jewelry you have to dish up with a lot of more money, since Japan has never been known for being a cheap country. I almost feel like crying every time I have to pay 3,5 USD for one apple or 60 cent for one single carrot. Eating healthy in Japan might kill me.

Another purchase of mine was three make-up pallets from LA colors – each with 16 shimmer colors.

The first one is with pinkish and purple colors, the second is with blueish and green colors and the last one has silver, copper and gold colors. This is the first time I’ve come across this brand, but when I saw the colors and the price it was love at first sight, which resulted in me buying all of them. One pallet costs 840 yen (around 9 USD), which is rarely a price I’ve come across – at least not when it comes to quality products, so I had my worries, but let the colors sweep me away. I was to be honest positively surprised by these products, the colors are a lot more pigmented than I had hoped for and the blend very nicely. I have one of the big Sephora pallets, which costs are lot more than these LA colors combined, but I have to admit that I actually can’t see the big difference between the two products. The Sephora one actually seems to have a lot more fall-outs than the LA colors, if I have to compare something else.

Of course these LA colors products are not the best make-up products I own or have tested, but considering the very cheap price I actually think they’re well worth the money, especially for everyday casual use. The colors are beautiful, shimmery, varied and transfers well from the pallet to the eyelid. I’m very happy with this purchase and I could see myself buying more LA colors products in the future.

I have been inactive for some time due to a busy schedule and a week ago a family member passed away here in Japan and I’ve been very busy with funeral preparations. I think my next blog entry will describe a shinto funeral here in Japan. Since I myself didn’t know much about this.